By Adam Pincus
Deliberations lasted less than two hours, said a member of the jury who wished to remain anonymous.”It took a pretty short amount of time because of a lack of evidence,” he said in a telephone interview Monday.Nelson Diaz, 34, a husband and father of a 9-year-old daughter, was emotional on hearing the not-guilty verdict in the death of teenager Juan Cabrera, those present in the courtroom said. During the trial, Diaz was free on bail after being charged in August 2004 in the attack.”Everyone was emotional at the end. His family, Juan's family. And for them it was a never-ending thing. Like a scar opening up again,” the juror said.The event that brought Diaz to the courtroom occurred on June 12, 1989, at about 6 p.m., police said, opposite 101-01 37th Ave. in Corona. Cabrera was with two teenage friends on their way home from school when they were approached by another group of four or five young men, police said. The two groups exchanged words and the second group began punching Cabrera, then robbed him, police said. Finally, they stabbed him multiple times, investigators said, leading to his death.Following the incident, three teenagers aged 16 to 18 – Roberto Tavares, Steven Batista and Luis Chaicon – were arrested and charged in connection with the stabbing. Tavares and Batista were charged with murder and each pleaded guilty to a first-degree manslaughter charge, a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney said. One was sentenced to four to 12 years and the other to 7 1/2 to 15 years. Assault charges against Chaicon were later dropped, the spokeswoman said.Diaz was not initially a suspect in the stabbing and the district attorney did not charge him until a convicted murderer and drug-dealer from Queens, Pedro Pena, told authorities that in a 1997 conversation in Miami Diaz allegedly admitted to stabbing Cabrera to death, prosecutors said.Pena testified during the trial, but fellow jurors did not find him a compelling witness, one juror said.Diaz's attorney Michael Schwed said he could see by the jury's reaction that Pena was not a good witness.”He was terrible, looking at the expressions of the jurors,” he said, noting that Pena had been convicted of shooting a man in the head and then dismembering the body.Diaz chose not to testify at the trial.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
